Sunday, March 25, 2012

More Pictures from Minot

This house is for sale for $50,000.

This house is now ready for rehab.

Sights like this are very common in the flood zone.

I think  they may park a truck beneath the chute when the garbage is dumped out the top window!!
A few more shots of the FEMA Village.

FEMA hauled 2235 trailers into Minot for the flood victims & they are in 3 trailers sites plus many on yards that had room for a trailer.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Week 3 at Minot MDS

This sign is at the United Congregational Church where the  MDS camp is located.
Project Director Albert consulting with a volunteer.
Working hard to prepare the floor for waxing at the Bible Fellowship Church where the MDS camp will be moving into next week.
Volunteer Mary painting at Mr. Don's house.

Tammy hard at work.

Headless painter!!
Assistant cook, Art, stirring the big pot.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Week 2 at MDS Minot

This week we had an energetic group of  7 youth with 4 chaperons from Kansas plus 8 retireres from SD & 7 people from Brandon, MB. We enjoyed the youth groups imitation  of us Canadians & how they thought we added "eh"  to the end of our sentences.
This is a home the the youth group started hauling out the debris & doing the clean-up.
Another volunteer group had removed the large pieces of lathe & plaster & the youth group worked on removing & cleaning & sweeping.

Safety protection is very important when doing clean-up after a flood.

The clean-up crew needed to wear the Tyvek Haz -Mat suits.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

A Story about an Angel

This is a picture of Joan who is the liaison between MDS & the United Congregational Church where we are staying. Joan comes in several times a week to check how things are going for us & to inform MDS of the various functions in the church. The Boy Scouts use the north end of the basement for their weekly meetings which means the men need to put away their personal belongs & bedding & the mats need to be all stacked on the side.Plus there are luncheons, Bible study hour, a soup kitchen on Monday at noon & Noah's Breakfast" on Saturday morning. This is a busy church & MDS is very thankful that they opened their doors to us. Joan shared with us last Wednesday evening about how the flood affected the church & this is the story she told us.
There was a funeral at the church here in June & at the end of the service there was one lady cleaning up in the kitchen. A man that she didn't know came into the kitchen & proceeded to tell the lady what to do with the sewer drain in the kitchen in order to protect the church from the threatening flood. The man made sure the lady wrote down all the information that he was telling her & asked her to be sure to show the paper to the maintenance team in the church. Nobody but this one lady ever saw this man & she did not know him. The church followed as many of the instructions as they were able too as some things in the plumbing system had changed from what the man's information had been. All the furniture from the basement was moved upstairs. The church experienced only 2 inches of clear water flooding & the conclusion is that God sent an angel to provide protection for the church. The church across the street was badly flooded & has 6 hundred thousand dollars worth of damage & have not yet been able to repair their basement.
This church has extended their gift of hospitality to us in a mighty way & MDS very welcome.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The FEMA Village

On the south east side of town is a FEMA village composed of approximately 600 trailers. There are several other villages on the outskirts of town made up of several hundred trailers. There were 4100 homes flooded during the summer of 2011.

Our son Barry & family visited us during the weekend & we took them to see this village. This is what my grandson, Zac, 15, journalled about his impression when we toured this village.

"Driving through the FEMA ( Federal Emergency Measures Act) trailer home told a desolate tale of depression and destruction. Once the floodwaters receded, those who were forced from their homes were shuttled into government provided mobile homes, plain white boxes are what they amounted to. Decent accommodations but the memories and joy of their previous residence had been washed away by the cruel indifference of mother nature. And to add insult to injury, if there were to be another flood, even these meager dwellings would be washed away."

 And this was Zac's impression of the flood zone & some of the MDS sites we visited.

"Meandering through the soaking streets the houses spoke all about destruction and depression. Sagging porches, debris hanging from the trees, mud instead of a lawn, it was enough to make a person despondent. Yellow signs reading "I'm coming back." littered the lawns & were the only defense against condemnation. With all the destruction, I'm not surprised the place looked like a ghost town."

For a 15 year old, I thought Zac's thoughts are pretty fascinating about how he observed the cleanup of the flood.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

The First Week in Minot, ND.

This is a common sight in the flood zone.

A home that has been gutted & is ready for repair.

This is one of the homes that MDS is repairing.

This is David & Ruth, a lovely couple from Ephtrata, PA. David was the driver for a group of 10 Old Order young men who volunteered here this past week.

These men wired a home during their week in Minot.

This is David, a long term volunteer from Nebraska.

This is Gwen & Glen from Orillia, ON. Minot was the 3rd MDS volunteer site for them this winter.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Mennonite Disaster Service at Minot, ND

For the month of March, we will be volunteering for MDS at Minot, ND. For now, the MDS base is at this church. We will be moving to another church within 2 weeks. The church we are presently using is quite a large church & it has many activities going on like Boy Scouts, Bible study groups, women's luncheons, & a Saturday morning "soup kitchen" plus one on Monday noon. I have a calendar that tells me which areas that need to be cleaned up & tidy for which event.
This is the front of the church which a a large beautiful stained glass window.

This windows are along the side of the sanctuary.

The woodwork is quite old but in beautiful shape.

This sign is a common sight at many flooded homes.
 The picture above is of a home that belongs to Melodie. The flood waters in this house were right up to the top of the ceiling. MDS completely gutted the house, put in new wiring, insulation & drywall, new carpets, cupboards, etc. Today there were a number of volunteers who weren't leaving until this afternoon, so they moved Melodie into her new home.
 Melodie still has some "flood money" left so she is thinking about spending it on siding & a back step which MDS would do for her.
This is Melodie. Her 36 year old son & her 87 year old stepfather live with her. Melodie wishes that she could go to Missouri to visit her daughter & her 4 grandchildren whom she has never met. She is very grateful for what MDS has done for her as her parents built the house that was flooded so it really means alot to her to be able to move back in. She has a heart of gold for the people that she is the main caregiver for & at this point I'm not sure how much she is appreciated.